Mikel Arteta no longer collecting Gabi’s

There are some departures that feel like football transfers, and there are others that feel like someone has quietly removed a piece of your life.

Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli leaving Arsenal belongs somewhere in the latter category.

Because before they were numbers on a team sheet, before the goals and assists and the inevitable debates about form, they were part of the fabric of a particular Arsenal. The Arsenal that was learning how to believe in itself again. The Arsenal that went from hopeful to genuinely dangerous. The Arsenal that made us look at the table and, for once, wonder whether maybe this could actually be our year.

And there was something wonderfully Brazilian about having the two Gabriels at the heart of it.

Jesus arrived carrying the weight of expectation, but also the unmistakable swagger of someone who knew exactly what he could do with a football. Martinelli arrived with something different: rawness, speed, chaos, a grin and the frightening sense that, if you gave him half a chance, he might simply run through the entire opposition.

Together, they became part of the soundtrack of Arsenal’s return.

We will remember Jesus for those moments when the game seemed to slow down around him. The little touches. The movement. The audacity. That glorious ability to make something happen where there didn’t seem to be anything. We will remember the celebrations, the swagger, the goals that mattered, and the occasions when he seemed to remind everyone that football is supposed to be fun.

How do you explain Martinelli to someone who wasn’t there?

You show them that impossible acceleration, the ball apparently attached to his feet while defenders panicked behind him. You show them the smile. You show them the boy who arrived at Arsenal and looked like he had been plugged directly into the electricity supply.

There were frustrations, of course. Football is not a scrapbook of perfect moments. There were injuries, inconsistency, missed chances and afternoons when neither player could quite find the version of themselves we knew was in there.

But perhaps that is why saying goodbye feels so strange.

Because footballers are rarely just the things they did.

They are the seasons in which they existed.

The ridiculous belief that somehow, eventually, everything would come together.

Jesus and Martinelli were part of Arsenal’s growing-up years. They belonged to that beautiful, slightly chaotic period when the club stopped looking backwards and started daring to look forwards.

Thank you for the goals, the noise, the laughter and the frustration. Thank you for the moments that made us leap from our seats and the moments that made us stare at the television wondering how on earth that had just happened.

Perhaps that is ultimately what supporting a football club asks of us: to remember that players come and go, while the memories stay.

Another Brazilian who makes us fall in love with the possibility of what might happen next.

But there will only ever be one Jesus and one Martinelli.

And when we look back at the years when this club began to feel like itself again, we will remember that they were there.